In August 1991, as the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Powell held his annual CINC Conference. At that meeting, he proposed a vigor-ous implementation of the reorganization within the Armed Services he believed was intended in the Gold-water-Nichols Act. Despite military successes in Pana-ma and Iraq in 1989 and 1991, Powell knew budgetary restrictions were on the horizon and much of the U.S.
force would be returned to CONUS bases. This would further complicate projection of joint forces globally and would require a focused approach to the problem.
To solve it, he proposed a new unified command dedi-cated to joint force advocacy, and he had a command and commander in mind.10
Admiral Paul D. Miller was a native Virginian and the CINC for the Atlantic Fleet in 1991. Powell described him as “a very aggressive and brilliant com-mander” and a true believer in the concept of joint op-erations.11 Though Powell’s suggestions to reduce the number of unified commands from 10 to six and cre-ate a new unified command in charge of all the Amer-icas was rejected by the CINCs at the annual CINC Conference in 1991, that next summer he placed Miller
(then CINCLANT) and his staff in charge of creating a plan to implement the necessary efficiencies and pro-vide a joint force advocate to change the culture of the American military.12
During this time, other CINCs and members of Congress, including Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), voiced their agreement that reorganization of the Armed Services was necessary to meet growing international require-ments in the face of shrinking resources. At the CINC Conference in August 1992, Powell submitted his idea to place all CONUS-based forces under a single uni-fied command, and Miller seconded the idea, suggest-ing LANTCOM as the unified command. By the end of the conference, the CINCs had agreed to research three possibilities: 1) keep current organization of forces; 2) give the new Air Combat Command (ACC) specified command status (allowing the ACC to com-mand and control all Air Forces in the United States);
or 3) reorganize LANTCOM to command all CONUS-based forces as the joint force integrator.13
Miller placed his special assistant, Navy Captain William D. Center, with the Joint Staff Strategic Plans and Policy directorate (J5) to research and write a concept paper discussing a unified command focused on joint force advocacy. The plan that was eventually devised would increase the scope of LANTCOM dras-tically by placing all CONUS-based forces under its command to facilitate its new role as joint force pro-vider and trainer to other unified commands around the world.14 Powell agreed with the concept. He viewed LANTCOM as the best choice for the assign-ment. It had a history of joint cooperation over the past 3 decades in the Caribbean. It had a reduced mission requirement as the defender of the Atlantic
follow-ing the fall of the Soviet Union. The new commander, Miller, was an adherent of Powell’s joint concept and willing to do the work needed to regain relevance for his command.15
In a March 1993 memorandum to Secretary of De-fense Les Aspin, Powell argued for the reorganization of LANTCOM as the joint force integrator of America’s CONUS-based force. On March 29, 1993, Aspin wrote a letter to Nunn, agreeing with Powell’s argument that such a reorganization would create efficiencies and unity of effort in the realm of joint operations.16 At the same time, Miller’s staff began planning for imple-mentation, knowing that final approval would require an implementation plan acceptable to the majority of the CINCs and Service Chiefs.
The LANTCOM staff created a LANTCOM Imple-mentation Working Group (LIWG), within the com-mand and outside of it with other CINCs and their staffs to quickly write a draft plan that incorporated input from the entire LANTCOM staff and from the component commands. To do so, the organization of the LIWG was based on a cross-functional model.
Seven functions of the new organization were identi-fied, and the directorates of LANTCOM most closely associated with those functions were assigned leader-ship of the development teams. Each team had a gen-eral officer/flag officer as a team leader and a colonel as the team director. The teams created a list of “kick start” issues they considered of primary importance to allow for quick action once implementation started because they feared a period of inaction often associ-ated with the formation of new groups.17
While the plan was being drafted, LANTCOM held periodic general officer/flag officer review group meetings with the CINCs and their staffs from the
proposed component commands. As their concerns and suggestions were included, the draft plan was sent to the staffs of the CINCs for the other unified commands and then to the CINCs themselves. Miller knew these commanders would initially have serious doubts about the proposed plan and hoped to short-circuit such objections by giving each unified com-mand CINC the opportunity to voice concern during the planning process. All of this was designed to allow for the greatest amount of participation and inclusion while accepting a very short planning cycle.18
At the same time, in the period of November 1991 to June 1993, Haiti was in the throes of a military coup.
Following the imposition of economic sanctions by the United States, Haitian refugees attempted to flee to America in makeshift boats. An injunction blocked any attempt to return these people to their home is-land and a refugee camp was established at Guanta-namo Bay (GTMO), Cuba. LANTCOM was in charge of the joint task force running the operation (JTF-GT-MO), and over the next 2 years, the population in the camp fluctuated from a few hundred to over 15,000 men, women, and children.19
As the CINCs took the time to examine the pro-posed implementation, several observations were forwarded and considered. U.S. Transportation Com-mand (TRANSCOM) wanted to be included in all joint planning and was unwilling to give up command of Air Force lift assets. U.S. Central Command (CENT-COM) was concerned because U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) was not going to be forced to relinquish its control of CONUS-based forces on the West Coast.
CENTCOM also feared any joint force packages it re-ceived from LANTCOM would not include the best forces for the mission. Not only would LANTCOM
gain command of the four main service-related force commands in the United States (U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM), LANTFLT, ACC, and Ma-rine Forces Atlantic (MARSFORLANT), it would also be responsible for the continental defense of the United States. In this role, U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM) insisted that North American Aero-space Defense Command (NORAD) be included in the planning. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) re-fused to give LANTCOM authority to include Special Operations Forces (SOF) in their joint force packages, and many wanted LANTCOM’s AOR greatly reduced to give its staff the ability to focus on the complexi-ties of its new mission.20 In short, Miller’s staff was threatening to break rice bowls, and the CINCs were not willing to sit quietly while it happened.
The LIWG took into account the concerns of the other unified commands and presented the draft Im-plementation Plan to the CINCs again in May 1993.
The concerns addressed in the new draft were consoli-dated into three main objections, and the plan was for-warded to the Joint Staff and the Service Chiefs. These objections focused on the fact that USACOM (the new acronym for LANTCOM under the Implementation Plan) would not command all forces in the U.S. (PA-COM would retain command of forces on the West Coast), that few commanders understood the new concept of lead operational authority created by the LIWG to explain how component commands would run routine missions, and that there was fear the con-cept of adaptive joint force packages would not be flexible enough to meet the needs of supported com-manders.21 The Service Chiefs from the Army and the Air Force agreed with and supported the plan while Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frank Kelso did
not. He, along with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, believed this reorganization would drain mon-ey from the Department of the Navy to the benefit of the other services and not add a benefit to naval forc-es. The Marine Corps contended it already conducted joint operations and did not need a separate unified command to act as trainer, provider, or integrator.22 Despite these objections, the plan was approved and signed into the Unified Command Plan on September 24, 1993, by President Clinton. The rebirth of LANT-COM as USALANT-COM was celebrated in a ceremony on October 1, 1993.
The fact that a plan of this magnitude could be con-ceived, created, and approved in a year is astound-ing. The cultural and organizational ramifications of the new USACOM as joint trainer and provider were profound. The use of a functional organization model and an adherence to inclusion of the entire unified command community were responsible for the suc-cess of this achievement. For the next 10 years, that implementation plan would be the basis for a success-ful command, one that expanded quite quickly, but one that ran into some unforeseen obstacles early on as well.
STAKING ITS CLAIM ON AN UNCERTAIN